


Sailor's Warning

by consumptive_sphinx



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Gen, Pre-Revolution, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 19:18:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8257384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/consumptive_sphinx/pseuds/consumptive_sphinx
Summary: My cousin and guide - I had come to think of Alexander as my cousin and guide, although it seemed that he thought of himself as my cousin and keeper - ignored her, beautiful as she was, accustomed as he must have been to such sights as mermaids. I was not, and did not, and could not have done so even in the event that I had wanted to.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



The mermaid moved through the water like she was a part of it, cutting into the current with a grace that rivaled the fish surrounding her. Her hair and scales were bronze, but they glinted golden in the sunlight, shining bright as a pirate’s doubloons in the clear water. She had been following alongside our boat for some time now, close to the bow, where the wake would have begun had we been moving fast enough to leave one. I kept my eyes on her, and she seemed to know it, though she did not look at me. 

My cousin and guide - I had come to think of Alexander as my cousin and guide, although it seemed that he thought of himself as my cousin and keeper - ignored her, beautiful as she was, accustomed as he must have been to such sights as mermaids. I was not, and did not, and could not have done so even in the event that I had wanted to. 

Our boat was only a short ways away from the shore; even I could easily have swum the distance. My cousin had scoffed when I had suggested that we might find better fishing prospects further into the water; it seemed that I was still too new to the islands to know how these things were done. It seemed odd that the mermaids could be found so close to the shore - the stories I had heard in boyhood spoke of them being difficult to find, far out in the open sea - but I deferred to Alexander on this as well, myself being a foreigner here and he having lived here all his life. 

Until three months ago the ocean had been entirely foreign to me, and I had been on the island for only three weeks. The customs of this place seemed nearly as foreign to me as the Caribbean itself: Alexander spoke in turns of phrase I had never heard before and peppered his speech with French and Hebrew, Alexander left doors open and very seldom wore shoes, Alexander had given me a lump of wax before we set off and I had not the slightest idea why.

The mermaid still had not looked at me, though I had yet to take my eyes off her, gliding her way through the turquoise water like a dolphin, like a fish, like an eel. My cousin had not acknowledged me either, remaining silent since we had pushed off the shore, which was odd for Alexander. Usually he was quite talkative, and if nobody would listen to him he would simply speak to himself; on land, such prolonged silence as this was nearly unheard of from him. He sat behind me in the boat; I could not see his face without making it clear what I was doing. 

The mermaid was easier. I needed no excuse to continue watching her. 

She seemed to notice my eyes on her now; she looked up at me and smiled, closed-lipped but bright as the sun. I smiled back at her, reached down to let my fingers skim across the water. 

The mermaid’s smile grew, and she reached upward to touch my hand, stretching webbed fingers up above the surface of the water - 

There was a loud crack of breaking bone as Alexander brought his paddle down on her fingers, narrowly avoiding mine. The mermaid retreated into the depths of the water, leaving no trace behind her. 

I kept the silence a few seconds longer, watching where the mermaid had been. “Why did you do that? She wasn’t hurting anybody.” 

Alexander took another half-minute to respond, and when I turned around to face him, he was removing wax plugs from his ears. “Mermaids are _dangerous,” _he said when he was done, with the air of one who is explaining something very simple to an idiot, or a young child, or a young child who is an idiot, and who should never have been expected to know better. I would likely have been offended had I not known that Alexander took that tone with everybody. “They’ll enchant you if you aren’t careful, you’re lucky she didn’t start singing. What did you think the wax was for?”__

__“I wouldn’t have done anything rash,” I said. I certainly wouldn’t have jumped off the boat to get closer - I may have been foreign to the islands, but I had more sense than that, I thought._ _

__Alexander scoffed. “You say that,” he said, which I took to mean that people who had plenty of sense in their heads regularly did just that. “But truly,” he said, his tone softening. “Stay away from mermaids. I have no desire to see you dead.”_ _

__I did not answer Alexander. But neither did I stare into the water, however clear and blue and beautiful it might have been._ _


End file.
